


Being more like Virgil

by thunderbird_dragon



Series: Being more like Virgil [1]
Category: Thunderbirds, thunderbirds are go
Genre: Brotherly Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 11:14:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15169502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunderbird_dragon/pseuds/thunderbird_dragon
Summary: 2060 - only a year since their father's disappearance but the Tracy boys are feeling the strain, especially Scott who's trying too hard to keep it all together and failing - if only he was a little more like Virgil





	Being more like Virgil

**Author's Note:**

> this was my first online fanfiction, it came in three parts :-)

                                                  

 

‘Stop pushing everyone so hard Scott!’  
The words echoed around and around his head, taunting him.  
John had said those very words at him only a week before. Virgil was always telling him. Granma had said it in a more gentle way but with her bony fingered hand firmly on his shoulder to let him know she meant it.  
Even Gordon had hinted at it, though he had a reverence, a respect, for his oldest brother that wouldn’t ever allow him to actually admit his hero might be wrong.  
And now here he was, that same little brother, lying beside Scott, unconscious, batter and bleeding, in what seemed a totally hopeless situation. No comms, no Thunderbird 1 or Virgil close by, at the bottom of an erupting volcano, miles from any other help. And Scott knew this situation was all of his own making.  
Virgil had ‘suggested’ a safer course of action, but no, Scott would forge ahead, there was no time for indecision, doubt or even safety – and of course, Gordon offered to go alongside him.  
He leant over Gordon again, checked his pulse, checked he was still breathing, checked the thin pad he had pressed in under Gordon’s uniform to stem the bleeding from his ribs.  
And cried out with all his anger – why did he have to push so hard!  
If he’d been Virgil, he’d have the right first aid equipment in his pouches, if he was Virgil he’d have taken more time to survey what was needed, if he was Virgil his kid brother wouldn’t be laying half dead beside him.  
But he wasn’t Virgil.  
He was Scott. He used to be so level-headed, calculating, one of the best pilots. That all seemed so long ago, all so distant. Now, he just knew that if he didn’t push himself on and on….  
What?  
He knew he must never show he was that close to the edge, that close to dissembling right in front of them, dissolving into a quivering wreck, no use to man nor beast. But he knew he was holding on by the thinnest of threads. This very moment, this very one, as he looks down at Gordon’s pale features, may actually be the moment that he cracks – he took the deepest of slow intakes of steadying breaths.  
Gordon stirred, just a little, his eyes opened and found Scott.  
“Hi Kiddo!” Scott expelled the breath quickly, “Thought I’d lost you there!”  
Gordon couldn’t answer yet, he managed the briefest of smiles and closed his eyes again.  
But it was enough for Scott to feel some relief, he eased his brother a little closer into him, if that were possible. He wished with all his might that he had followed Virgil’s lead and spent more time on the paramedic training, he probably had less than a third of Virgil’s. Virgil would have known more of what to do, he would have been able to help Gordon, whereas Scott could only keep him close and stem the bleeding.  
Anger rose in him again, bursting out in a growling cry that echoed around the tight valley and almost drowned out the roar from the volcano behind them.  
“Would... you…”  
Scott looked down at Gordon whose eyes were flickering open a little again, his voice so quiet that Scott had almost missed it.  
‘What’s that Kiddo?’  
Gordon struggled to focus on Scott again, “Would you stop making all that noise!” He managed in a controlled breath to sustain the voice, and he attempted to shift his weight a little, desperate to release his arm which had been trapped under him – Scott realised his mistake and tried to help – Gordon’s hand changed from blue to natural again in the light available and Scott felt another burst of remorse, he should have known to check how Gordon was lying.  
“Sorry Gordo, I'm no Virgil!”  
Scott could imagine Gordon agreeing with that right then if he had the strength. Instead, he turned his head a little towards Scott and Scott dropped his hand down to rest on the nape of his neck.  
“Sorry, Gordo,” he leant over again, hoping to hear a reply over the noise of the volcano's latest burst.  
“S’okay” Gordon’s voice was a tiny bit stronger, Scott sighed so hard that Gordon felt the breath on his face. “We’re good?”  
“No, Gordo, no, we’re not, I’ve gotten you into this shit and I’ve got to get us both out.” The urge to lift Gordon into his arms and start walking was so strong that his hands were sliding under the limp body before he realised how much more pain he was inflicting. “Sorry, sorry!” And he released his brother back to the stony ground, watching Gordon's eyes screwed up tight to cope with the heat of the pain.  
Scott stood up abruptly, how could he have got this all so wrong? How did he become this mess? How could he have dragged his brothers along into that mess with him? He was looking up to the stars in desperation, looking for some sort of answer. Some sort of strength - from his Father perhaps?  
“Scott?”  
He knelt back down beside Gordon to hear him add, “I thought you’d left me!” in a whisper.  
After all he’d done, after the mistakes that could have cost Gordon his life, and other members of his family over the last year, after everything – Gordon still wanted him close.  
“No, no I’m still here Kiddo. I’d never desert you. Never!” Scott nestled down beside his little brother, his hand back on Gordon’s neck and shoulder, his other hand wrapped over Gordon’s left hand and wrist, the only places he could see it were okay to touch.  
And he vowed, with all his might, never to get any of them, ever, into anything like this again, it was time – time to be more like Virgil.

 


End file.
